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The (Right Way to Think) About Branding

At least one of the misguided concept in business is not money but control.

And a brand is something you as an owner of the business can’t control.

But this doesn’t mean you can’t influence the process.

Your brand is your business reputation. What people say when they talk about your business that’s your brand. Not what you say about it.

This is beyond your company colors, building, logo, or intellectual properties. And it’s your customers who make a choice to either create your brand or let it perish.

Good news is you can improve your brand. Heck, you can even fix a broken one. But the process toward a better understanding of branding is simple but yet trick.

Are you busy doing the right things with your branding?

Because if you think about your brand. And say I will improve it by doing better than the next person or the next competitor.

It will do you no good; you can’t compete at being better because there are those who will always do better than you.

Particularly in me-too-economy of ours.

And you can’t depend on advertising either, especially because

People don’t like one-way “conversations.”

People don’t trust advertisers.

The right way to think about branding is not to do it better but to do it differently.

But you don’t do it differently by lowering your prices; you’re not Wal-Mart. And you won’t sustain your life or you clients businesses doing that. You will just create low prices junkies who always buy on discount or when things are on sale.

You don’t do it differently either by motivation. And small incentives to your customers. Unless those incentives are there to enforce a right kind of behavior, it will do you no good.

The two sides of persuasive brand

You have to remember today’s real competition doesn’t come from other companies. But the extreme clutter of the marketplace.

And this over-abundance of look-alike products. And me-too services is forcing customers to search for something, anything. To help them separate the winners from the clutter.

In a world of extreme clutter when you need to do it differently, you need more than differentiation. You need “radical” differentiation.

—This is an introduction to a series articles where I will, be looking at branding and it’s perks. I will have the next installment soon, don’t forget to check out the homepage.